Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.

One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide.

That was ten years ago. Ten long years.

Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start.

And Daina's here. Watching every day as her mother cries in the courtroom. Watching every day as her friends, and her enemies, and her killers lie about her on the stand.

Watching, and making sure that no matter what the coroner hears, you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

So help you God.

Warning: this book contains some bad language, and scenes of sexual assault. Recommended for ages 17+ only.

Excerpt

Watch this. Watch this now. Those men - the ones in the fluoro vests and the hard hats and the mud-caked boots. They’ve removed the bricks of the house, by hand. They’ve piled them up and put them aside in neat square packages wrapped in tarpaulin, ready to use again when the time comes. They’re about to raise the house off its foundations.

It’s amazing.

Before the earthquake, no one had ever really tried something like this before. It was a proposition of something that might work in a trade magazine that no one would ever have read. Except now it was read, and practiced, because there were so many opportunities to try out things people had never tried before.

Opportunity, and the potential to save money. A perfect combination for experiments. And this thing works.

Watch them. Right there. They’re lifting the denuded house up off the foundations. It creaks and groans but it holds together. Amazing.

And look down in the foundations. Where they’re cracked and broken and the floor on one side has dropped almost a foot in height because of the liquefaction souping up the earth. That bit, where it’s broken so much the bare earth can be seen straight through the concreted silt. Even before anyone starts to try to crack it up. Broken along a prior instability.

That’s where I am.

Watch them as they pull aside the hard clods, and now – that one – he’s reaching forward, pulling one aside to expose a creamy white bone. He’s taking a step back now. He’s calling over his shoulder to a colleague. His site manager is about to be wholly pissed off, and frustrated because he’s not allowed to show it. Not in this situation.

But the whole site’s going to be roped off and their work is going to be backed up and he’s going to be on the phone for the rest of the day trying to shuffle everything around so he doesn’t lose more than a day’s wages for his crew.

It’ll take a while before they know that it’s me. There’s going to be a stream of ‘professionals’ coming by. They’ll carefully dig, and photograph, and exhume each bone. They’ll lay it out on a board in a morgue, making sure that each and every little piece of me is tagged and laid out in place.

They’ll drill into the bone, the femur, and try to get a read on the DNA left in the dried out marrow. They’re going to find a match with a file on a missing person. And that missing person file is going to be me.

My mum’s going to get a knock on the door that she’s been waiting for, and dreading, for a decade. She’s going to break down and cry with the easy tears of a drunk, even though her ten year chip takes pride of place in her jewellery box.

She’ll cry, and won’t hear half of what they say. But they’ll be patient, and they’ll go through everything with her again. And again.

I would cry too, if I still had something to cry with.

But for now that’s all poised in the distance, a series of dominos not yet pushed into action. For now, there’s just the hi-viz workers and the glimpse of something they know shouldn’t be there. For now there’s just my dead bones and the cold ground they’ve been stored in, hidden in, waiting for the puff of fresh air to caress their curves and lines. Waiting for the dirt to be brushed aside and their porous surface to inhale the warmth of the sun.

Waiting to be found.

Praise for the Book

"A haunting novel that's both tough and delicate and fulfills the promise of the author's first." ~ Kirkus Reviews

"Skeletal is an intriguing read that doesn't play out in the way readers would expect, with an engaging style of storytelling and a conclusion that leaves you reeling in wonder. Bravo." ~ K.C.Finn Readers' Favorite

"Skeletal ... offers a different perspective on how teenage fiction may be written. Skeletal is a tale full of life ... vivified by one of teen fiction's strongest characters." ~ Alysha Allen Readers' Favorite

"This book will haunt the bejesus out of you. Recommended." ~ Cate Baum SPR

"This is a captivating mystery that unfolds in a unique manner and leads you on a trail to discover things you never expect to find out." ~ Tina Gibbons Readers' Favorite

About the Author

Katherine Hayton is a 41 year old woman who works in insurance, doesn't have children or pets, can't drive, has lived in Christchurch her entire life, and currently resides a two minute walk from where she was born. Fascinating, eh?

She's the author of two spectacular un-bestselling books (unless you count tiny niche genres on Amazon, which of course you should) Found, Near Water and Skeletal.

She is currently curled up on her couch with her typewriter (laptop) while she tries very hard to give birth to her next novel (as yet unnamed but probably involving gruesome murders).

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